Max Wis-Based At-Will Damage Build

[robbie374]

I am considering a Wisdom-based character build and looking to maximize at-will damage, preferably across all tiers of play.

What do you recommend?

For this purpose, at-will means average damage that can be expected across nearly every turn in a standard 6-8 encounter, 2-3 short rest adventuring day.

You will be up against some enemies with resistance to non-magical damage, but you will never find a magic item during your adventure. Your attacks and spells will land 60% of the time if you have neither advantage nor disadvantage.

At least 5 levels of the build must be Cleric/Druid/Monk/Ranger levels with Wisdom as the highest ability score.

Stats are made with point buy, and you are allowed a bonus feat at level 1. Any official or UA material is allowed.

The more fun the build, in and out of combat, the better! :D

[Sirithhyando]

Arcana Cleric 8(?) get's you +WIS Mod to cantrip

You choose evocation cantrip and go with 2 level of evocation wizard for half-damage on miss with evocation cantrips.

[clash]

Step 1: Get shillelagh
Step 2: Maximize weapon damage

[samcifer]

Arcana Cleric 8(?) get's you +WIS Mod to cantrip

You choose evocation cantrip and go with 2 level of evocation wizard for half-damage on miss with evocation cantrips.

Lv. 6 for half damage on save. The lv. 2 effect is making 1+ spell's level worth of spaces of no damage within your evocation AoE spell effects.

Eep, never mind. I was thinking Evocation Wizard. :P

[dejarnjc]

My gut says a Variant human (for magic initiate shillelagh), hunter ranger with pole-arm master (bonus feat) would be the best for at-will damage.

Cleric and druid really aren't as good for at-will damage in my experience.

[Spectrulus]

Step 1: Get shillelagh
Step 2: Maximize weapon damage

I'm currently playing a Magic Initiate Shillelagh Ranger, Dueling fighting style, and making my party's Hexblade jealous of my combat prowess, it totally works.

Magic Initiate
Shillelagh, Magic Stone (ranged wis damage)
Goodberry

Going to add Polearm Master next level, and it only gets better from there at level 5 with the second attack.

[nickl_2000]

I'm currently playing a Magic Initiate Shillelagh Ranger, Dueling fighting style, and making my party's Hexblade jealous of my combat prowess, it totally works.

Magic Initiate
Shillelagh, Magic Stone (ranged wis damage)
Goodberry

Going to add Polearm Master next level, and it only gets better from there at level 5 with the second attack.

This would work for Fighter and Paladin as well, although not as well as Ranger since the ranger gets stuff from wisdom.

[Aaron Underhand]

Maybe not in the full spirit, but I considered:

Variant Half-Elf (Drow). Drow Magic, giving Dancing lights as well as Faerie Fire once/LR and Darkness once/LR

Bonus Feat: Elven Accuracy

Point buy: St 9 Dex 16 (15+1) Con 12 Int 8 Wis 17 (15+1+1) Cha 14 (12+2)

Ranger

Fighting Style at 2nd level: Archer

Architype: Horizon Walker

Feat at 4th Level: Sharpshooter


So at 5th level we have 2 attacks from a longbow at:

Bonus action (Planar warrior)
1st attack D8+ D8 (Planar warrior) + D6 (hunters mark - 6 encounters/day) + 3 (dex) +10 => 25.5 (Note this is force, don't need magic weapon)
2nd attack D8+ D6 (hunters mark - 6 encounters/day) + 3 (dex) +10 => 21

So a total of 46.5

Attack is +3 (-5 for extra damage) - we were told hit 60%. assume this would be at an attack of 7 at 5th level so we hit 40%

DPR = 18.6

With advantage and elven accuracy your to hit becomes 78.4% and DPR becomes 36.456

Once/day you can generate self advantage with Faerie Fire - you can do that with hiding and pass without trace if you forgo one of your daily hunter's marks.

You'll also get great mileage out of bless, bardic inspiration and the like

[Seekergeek]

I think you could have some real fun with a wis-focused ranger 8 - probably a kobold with the revised beast master and the magic initiate druid feat to get your hands on primal savagery. Since you only get one attack, and your co-ordinated attack feature only requires the attack action the scaling damage from the cantrip is probably a decent option on top of now getting two attacks per round out of your companion.

edit: I'm AFB so I apologize for not providing you with any real numbers. Womp womp.

[Aaron Underhand]

Lets try another approach

Variant Human

1st level feat: Mage Initiate (Druid) for Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, and Thunderwave
Bonus Feat: Mobile

Point buy: St 12 Dex 14 (13+1) Con 14 Int 8 Wis 18 (15+1+2 @4th) Cha 10

Cleric 5 - Medium armour and shield AC 19 potentially

Architype: Arcana Cleric - Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade

ASI at 4th Level: WIS+2

So at 5th level we have 1 attacks from a Shillelagh, Using Booming blade and mobile to move away, and 5 times a day spiritual weapon for a bonus attack doing:

Shillelagh: D8+D8 (booming Blade) +4 (wis) => 13, or if the Booming blade triggers (they move) => 22

or if you have two of them together:

Shillelagh: D8+D8 (Green Flame Blade) +4 (wis) + second target (8.5) => 21.5

Spiritual weapon when triggered: D8+Wis => 8.5 (Note this is no concentration)

Attack is +7 we were told hit 60%.

DPR with spiritual weapon and triggering BB => 18.3

The real strength of this build comes in at 8th level when you add Wisdom again to Booming blade and Green flame blade (potentially twice - YMMV). Assuming WIS+2 at 8th and only one bonus the DPR is now: 22.5

This ignores the fact that you can cast bless 4 times a day, and might use your third level slots for spirit guardians in big fights

[Naanomi]

Hill Dwarf Nature Cleric with Shillelegh, get Booming Blade later with Magic Initiate

[CTurbo]

Vhuman Arcana Cleric start 10 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con, 8 Int, 16 Wis, 8 Cha
Free feat - Warcaster
Vhuman feat - Magic Initiate - Druid - Shillelagh, Magic Stone, and Faerie Fire

Breastplate+Shield for 18 AC. Use club and sling
Get Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade

Start Cleric 8 and bump Wis at lvl 4 and 8 to max it.
Then Ranger 5 for Hunter/Colossus Slayer/Dueling Style/Humanoid favored enemy/Hunter's Mark/Extra Attack/Sentinel at Ranger 4
Then Fighter 3 for Second Wind/Defense Style/Action Surge/Battle Master for Riposte

From there you can either finish out Cleric for more spell slots, finish Ranger for more spell slots and one of the level 7 abilities like Escape From the Horde or Multiattack defense, or Finish Fighter for more and bigger superiority dice.

The Mobile would be great, and Medium Armor Mastery feats would be great to pick up late if you want more AC and also care about stealth. Your AC with Half-plate would be 21.

Ask the DM if you were to take BeastMaster ranger, would the beast level up with character levels or only with Ranger class levels, if he'll let the Companion level up with character levels, going Beastmaster 5 and also Fighter 5 would be awesome as you would get 2 attacks per round, and your companion would also get 2 attacks per round.


The idea would be to spam Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade with your club using Shillelagh while still rocking a high AC
Level 5 Booming Blade would be 2d8+4 and an extra 2d8 if they move.
Level 8 Booming Blade would be 2d8+10 and an extra 2d8+5 if they move.
Level 11 Booming Blade would be 4d8+12 with an extra 3d8+5 if they move.

Once you get Sentinel and then Riposte, You'd pretty much be able to use Booming Blade again with your reaction pretty much every round. Colossus Slayer also works again with your reaction.


So turn 0 before battle, cast Spirit Guardians(from your highest slot) and Shillelagh.
Turn 1 after Initiative, Booming Blade and Spiritual Weapon(from your highest slot)

From then on, your Booming Blade will deal 5d8+12 damage, 4d8+5 if they move, use Spiritual Weapon with Bonus action for 2d8+5 damage, use Booming Blade again with reaction for another 5d8+12 damage if they attack you OR your buddy you are standing beside, all while beating every enemy within 10ft of you with Spirit Guardians for 5d8 damage from your 5th level slot.

A successful round would be 25d8+39 damage + possible Superiority dice



Green Flame Blade would be 5d8+12 to the enemy you hit, and an also 4d8+10 to a 2nd enemy standing next to the first while beating both of them up with Spirit Guardians.

[Aaron Underhand]

Once more with feeling

Variant Human

1st level feat: Mage Initiate (Druid) for Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, and Thunderwave
Bonus Feat: Sentinel

Point buy: St 12 Dex 14 (13+1) Con 14 Int 8 Wis 18 (15+1+2 @4th) Cha 10

Fighter 5 - Medium armour and shield AC 19 potentially

Architype: Battlemaster

ASI at 4th Level: WIS+2

So at 5th level we have 2 attacks from a Shillelagh,

2 Shillelagh attacks: D8+2 (duelling) +4 (wis) => 21

Attack is +7 we were told hit 60%.

DPR => 12.6 - not great, but:

Sentinel plus battle master means:

If they move away - reaction: D8+2 (duelling) +4 (wis) => 10.5
If they attack an ally - reaction: D8+2 (duelling) +4 (wis) => 10.5

4 times/SR you get manoeuvres - so 12 times a day you get:

If they miss: Riposte: D8+D8+2 (duelling) +4 wis => 15

You might want to lean Parry as well (because it'll be you they attack once they find out about Sentinel)

With sentinel triggered your DPR is 18.9
With riposte you just put your DPR to 21.6

And action surge can give you another 12.6 for a nova round of 31.5

Personally I still think the Sharpshooter build wins...

[Aaron Underhand]

Hill Dwarf Nature Cleric with Shillelegh, get Booming Blade later with Magic Initiate

This gets divine strike in place of adding Wis to cantrip damage d8 instead - going to 2d8 at 14th level

[Aaron Underhand]

Vhuman Arcana Cleric start 10 Str, 14 Dex, 16 Con, 8 Int, 16 Wis, 8 Cha
Free feat - Warcaster
Vhuman feat - Magic Initiate - Druid - Shillelagh, Magic Stone, and Faerie Fire

Breastplate+Shield for 18 AC. Use club and sling
Get Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade

Start Cleric 8 and bump Wis at lvl 4 and 8 to max it.
Then Ranger 5 for Hunter/Colossus Slayer/Dueling Style/Humanoid favored enemy/Hunter's Mark/Extra Attack/Sentinel at Ranger 4
Then Fighter 3 for Second Wind/Defense Style/Action Surge/Battle Master for Riposte

From there you can either finish out Cleric for more spell slots, finish Ranger for more spell slots and one of the level 7 abilities like Escape From the Horde or Multiattack defense, or Finish Fighter for more and bigger superiority dice.


Note that you cannot use second attack with Booming blade or green flame blade - I rate mobile to help with triggering booming blade...

[Naanomi]

This gets divine strike in place of adding Wis to cantrip damage d8 instead - going to 2d8 at 14th level
And heavy armor... dump both STR and DEX

[Aaron Underhand]

And heavy armor... dump both STR and DEX

Heavy armour probably needs Str 15 - both for move penalties and for encumbrance.

the problem with all the WIS based builds is that Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master are really the max DPR builds for a relatively straightforward approach - unless your DM will let you dual wield shillelagh, and you can add hunters mark to it :-)

[Aaron Underhand]

Dual wield Shillelagh

Variant Human

1st level feat: Mage Initiate (Druid) for Shillelagh, Thorn Whip, and Thunderwave
Bonus Feat: Dual Wielder

Point buy: St 12 Dex 14 (13+1) Con 14 Int 8 Wis 18 (15+1+2 @4th) Cha 10

Ranger 5 - Medium armour and dual wield - AC 18

Architype: Hunter - colossus slayer

Fighting style: Two weapon fighting

ASI at 4th Level: WIS+2

So at 5th level we have 3 attacks from a Shillelagh, 2 normal, one off-hand bonus, potentially all with hunter's mark

Note this requires 3 bonus action casts to set up!

2 normal Shillelagh: D8+D6 +4 (wis) => 12, twice => 24
bonus action Shillelagh: D8+D8 (assume we can now get colossus slayer) D6 +4 (wis) => 16.5,

Attack is +7 we were told hit 60%.

DPR once all set up => 24.3

From here I would recommend 3 levels of fighter to Champion, to gain:

lv 1; Duelling fighting style - first two rounds while your bonus actions are swamped - start with one Shillelagh then get hunters mark - you get two attacks with +2 damage to each

lv 2: Action surge

lvl 3: Critical range - with three attacks you have a 27.1 % chance of at least one critical a round for a single attack that does 33 points

Note with advantage that's 47% chance of at least one critical each round

[Naanomi]

Heavy armour probably needs Str 15 - both for move penalties and for encumbrance
Dwarves overcome the former, mules overcome the latter

[bid]

I am considering a Wisdom-based character build and looking to maximize at-will damage, preferably across all tiers of play.
Any monk with quarterstaff will do 1d8+3 * 2 + 1d6+3 = 21.5 * .6 ~ 12.9 DPR
Sentinel at level 1 would bump it to 17.4 DPR.
And it's all magic damage from level 6 onward.

I don't like hunter's mark because it's not quite at-will, you only get it for 4 hours and it's concentration. I'm pretty sure action surge would come close to the same overall damage, since you have no chance of losing it. So you brute with dueling style for 1d4+2 * 2 for an overall 22.8 DPR (18.3 without sentinel).

So monk 6 / brute 4 with Dex16 Con14 Wis20.
That's the boring minimum.


Now, 2d6 SA from rogue seems clearly better than hunter's mark.
Monk 6 / swash 4 with Dex16 Con14 Wis20.
That's an extra 2d6 per turn, better than HM.
Turn is 1d6+3 * 2 + 2d6 + 1d6+3 ~ 18.8 DPR.
Round is 23.3 DPR with sentinel.
You can go kensei for whip, since sentinel adds back 5' OA.


I'd rather get wood elf magic than sentinel or elven accuracy. Pass without a trace is nicer.

[hymer]

Dual wield Shillelagh
You can only have one Shillelagh spell running at a time, unfortunately. Even if a DM is willing to overlook that, the need to cast (and possibly recast later in the fight) works rather poorly with dual wielding, in that it takes a bonus action to cast (and then another to cast on the other weapon), and only then can you start attacking with your off-hand. And then there's the Somatic component, but you should be able to get around that even without Warcaster.

[Naanomi]

You can’t dual wield but... you can bonus action attack from Polearm Mastery, which is almost as good

[hymer]

You can’t dual wield but... you can bonus action attack from Polearm Mastery, which is almost as good
Better, you might say, given that you can... *coughs and clutches chest with pained expression* wield a shield along with a staff.

[Naanomi]

Better, you might say, given that you can... *coughs and clutches chest with pained expression* wield a shield along with a staff.
It isn’t that bad even if it is decided you cannot

[Talionis]

I would think youd want 3 levels of Rogue for Assasinate and 2d6 sneak attack.

One level of Monk to get some Wisdom on AC.

Arcane Cleric can pick up Booming Blade and Greenflame Blade and gets to add wisdom to those.

You can pick up Shailagh off magic initiate.

[Coidzor]

Evocation Wizard 6 and Arcana/Light/Etc. Cleric 14

4d8+5 Radiant damage on Sacred Flame. Average of 23 on a roll. So that means .6 * 23 + .4 * (23/2) = 13.8 + 4.6 = 18.4 DPR.

4d12+5 Necrotic Damage on Toll the Dead against an already injured foe. Average of 31 on a roll. Not Evocation so that's .6 * 31 = 18.6 DPR

4d6+5 * (1 to 8) Radiant damage on Word of Radiance. Average of 19 on a roll. .6 * 19 + .4 * (19/2) = 11.4 + 3.8 = 15.2. So that's between 15.2 and 121.6 DPR. That or between 15.2 and 93.6 if Potent Spellcasting only applies to one of those damage rolls. Can't recall offhand.

Pros: 7th Level Cleric Spell access + 3rd level Wizard Spell access. Many useful Wizard rituals available.

Cons: no 8th or 9th level spells. Hefty investment into a secondary class delaying progression greatly. Getting damage even if they make their save is still less DPR than Toll the Dead + Potent Spellcasting against an already injured target.

So that's the least creative option covered right there.



Although I suppose a straight Light/Arcana/Etc. Cleric 20 that hasn't invested anything into this. would be looking at a baseline of 13.8 DPR with Sacred Flame and 15.2 and 121.6 DPR with Word of Radiance.

10.8 DPR on Sacred Flame and 11.2 to 89.6 DPR on Word of Radiance and 15.6 DPR on Toll the Dead(vs. Injured) for Clerics without Potent Spellcasting.


While a Druid 20 that hasn't invested anything would be looking at a baseline of .55 * 9.5 +.05 * 14 = 5.925 DPR with Shillelagh and one attack(8.41875 with Advantage, 3.43125 with Disadvantage).

8.4 DPR with Frostbite/Infestation/Thorn Whip, 15.6 DPR for Poison Spray, 13.2 DPR for Primal Savagery, 10.8 DPR for Produce Flame, 8.4 to 67.2 DPR for Thunderclap.